Lightning
by Anhai
Summary: Silverbolt learns about his ability through...very odd means. Y'know, if he manages to remember it later. G1. One-shot. Rated for a reason.


Through the Storm with Broken Wings

**Lightning**

_(Please read author's notes a the bottom for warnings, though that might give away part of the fic)_

The flash of lightning painted pretty pictures on his rain-slick body, blue-to-white-to-black-to-gray-to-silver-repeat.

The sight truly was magnificent. A black canvas smeared erratically with white-blue paint, only to lose it seconds later. A perfect image of danger stained with a single shot of silver and red and sleekness, like the single left over drop of some spilled, heavy color worming its way through marred perfection, streaking toward its own destination with no concern for the masterpiece it had become apart of. Beauty and fear and danger and the taste of sour fire in his mouth.

If it had been any one of his brothers they might have enjoyed it. Air Raid would have chased the lighting like the bolts were enemy fliers, screaming his challenge to the thunder, and coming back later grinning, low on fuel, burned, and sparking with excess energy. Slingshot would have fought with the electrical streaks where Skydive would have danced with them. Both using the chaotic atmosphere to prove to themselves what they could do, what they were; why they were there. Fireflight would have loved the view, until a stray shot of electricity caught him and dropped him, leaving him to call for his brothers and then to show them just what he had seen up there in the messy skies that distracted him so…

All just to have fun. Just to enjoy themselves and their gift of flight.

Silverbolt, however…he saw no joy in the storm. No joy at all. It was a maze of danger and traps with shadows below and shadows above, lit unevenly and falsely by the storm. Night-flying was bad enough, but add a storm to the mix and…

Well, at least the wind was behaving itself- if only just. The Ark was only a few miles or so off; if he was careful he could-

Silverbolt yelped and jolted, rolling shakily away from the streak of lightening that passed down scant inches from his wing, sending shivers through him at the mild burning and the crackle of static.

Oh how he wanted to fly lower, farther from the mother-clouds and brother-thunder of the electrical bolts. Closer to the ground, but not close enough. Threads of electricity running through the wet ground were not good for soaking jets who were easily the same size or taller of a majority of the trees in the area. And far more receptive.

Another bolt passed near his nosecone and the heat threw the jet from his thoughts and from his senses.

Static ran through his entire body and the feeling of the electricity over his plating almost sent him into a messy dive. Dead-weight falling uncontrolled from several hundred feet up.

For once his phobia worked with him, and with panicked motions he evened himself out. This wasn't good. This wasn't good. This was not _good_.

He dropped altitude and pushed himself faster, thrusters roaring louder and evaporating the nearby rain with their heat as he flew.

And then it struck.

The feeling of electricity, stronger than before, running rampant through his body was an unpleasantly pleasant feeling, but Silverbolt had less than a second to decide which it truly was, if either.

The world went loopy as his optics abruptly shorted, distorting colors and pictures until everything blurred and went dark. His wings wavered and fell lopsided at the feeling of static playing lightly at his flaps and flight-sensitive panels. Wind and engine noise roared through his optics until it should have hurt but he couldn't focus on it. The jolting feeling of falling didn't register as sensations became disjointed and confused. It felt good, it felt wrong. It was terrifying, and dangerous, and so powerful it was killing him and…

And he couldn't bring himself to care.

It crossed his mind once as he fell, and only once, that he should probably radio his brothers. He didn't know why, he didn't care why, but he didn't because if he sent anything less than a crystal clear message saying that he was right on the Ark's doorstep the whole lot of them (or the majority) would panic and fly headlong into the storm. That would be bad, maybe.

It was the most lucid not-thought he had before another shot of lightening sent him spinning from a half-fall to a full, vertical dive. This exhilaration he felt from the electricity wasn't normal. That much he knew he should know from hanging around Hot Spot and, by association, First Aid. He _knew_ this. He knew that he shouldn't be online, that he shouldn't still be in the air, that it shouldn't feel this good. He knew he probably shouldn't even still be alive. But right then…he didn't; couldn't think about it, and overload was approaching fast as the strands of electricity brushed along inside him and over him and through him…

Silverbolt screamed and flipped head-over-heels as his systems leapt, stuttered, and shorted out, a bolt-storm of his own erupting from his maddeningly sensitive nosecone back into the raging skies, his jet mode falling away like water to reveal his bi-pedal form. His answer to chaos. A streak of energy returning home, to the crackling warm-wetness of the birth-place.

Mother-cloud, brother-thunder, sister-rain…

He was out when he hit the ground, the muddy, soft ground, with out-of-place gentleness. He should have been nothing more than parts, but he wasn't. The explosion of energy had righted him just enough to ease his fall, and though he was dented and probably wouldn't be able to move his legs or arms or anything else, he was fine.

The spare electricity fell off of him and crackled against the ground, running out and gone by the time his brothers descended upon him with furious worry hours later.

Though the ground did tingle where they stepped, and to touch Silverbolt was like sticking your hand in a mound of live wires. Ratchet had reached a near apoplectic fury when they brought the jet to him, arms singed by the crackle of electricity. Everyone who wasn't First Aid or Wheeljack was banished from the med-bay while Ratchet verbally dismantled and made toasters from each and every jet from Earth to Cybertron, from past to future.

And through it all, Silverbolt slept.

Xxx

Warnings: Yes, Silverbolt overloads mid-flight. That's…not a good thing. 

Yes, that's it…my brain wanted me to write Silverbolt and only gave me an actually way to go half-way through it…heh.

Hope you enjoyed. Have a nice day!


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